Anyone read these?

I was in the library and two hardcovers in the new section caught my eye; mystery novels. I picked one up and read the front; a gay American vampire writer comes to live in a quiet English village and solves a murder? Sounded promising so I swept the first book, 'Posted to Death' and the second, 'Faked to Death', by Dean James into my bag and checked them out.

Hmm. I read them both, and the second was better than the first but...hmm. By a weird coincidence, a p/b of the first was in the discards pile when I went to volunteer so I snaffled it but I have to say that they're not good enough to be hardcover releases.

The premise is that research (by vamps) has developed a pill that allows vampires to not need to drink blood, to walk in sunlight and the only things that can hurt them are garlic (poison) and a stake. Huh. If they don't need to drink and they're 24/7, they're not really vampires if you ask me. Except...Angel doesn't really...and he can...uh. That's different!

There's also no hint of loss of soul, though one of the friends of the vampire died of AIDS rather than agree to be turned which argues a downside exists.

Moving on, there's an irritating combination of whimsy and seriousness. The village is the sort that never existed and as the author is supposed to know England, this has to be deliberate. The protagonists have names like Lady Prunella Blitherington ::yawn:: and there's a tendency to use italics everywhere (that improves in the second book; in the first it had me gritting my teeth.

The vampire, Simon Kirby-Jones, writes mystery novels and romances under pseudonyms and in a tiny village meets at least three good looking, interested gay men (none of whom know he's a vampire)all of whom aren't backward about coming forward. Odds of that? Hmm. Not that there's any smut. Lots of UST between Simon and his new secretary, Giles, son of Lady Prunella, but though Giles tries to get Simon to seduce him every other page, nothing doing. Why?

The motive for murder is the same in both books, which seems slightly unimaginative.

So, points for making the hero gay and a vampire, which makes a change, points for what could have been an interesting idea and a different sort of detective...but minus points for cliches and a weird style of writing.

One more of those Jesus chain anonymous comments from people who don't know how to use caps lock...

and I'm friends locking until they go away. Anyone else getting them? Harmless, easily deleted but yuck :; dusts off LJ fastidiously:: Shoo, why don't you? ::channels Gollum:; Go away and never come back!

'If Truth Be Told' Giles/Spike /Wes R rated 1/2

That WIP I was all set to abandon? I carried it on and this is the result. It's getting rather too long, so I split it and here's part one. I almost gave up; it's as uneven as a road through the woods and dogged determination is never the best mood to be in when you're writing smut but...

Part two should be up tonight/tomorrow. With real smut. They're all naked in a bed after all. Getting them there is the hard part, right?

( If Truth Be Told )

Heinlein Dedications article

In an odd coincidence, just after I posted here about Ginny Heinlein, Jim Gifford, one of the foremost Heinlein scholars and an old friend, asked if he could put an article I co wrote with Tim Morgan up on his Heinlein site. It's here

http://www.nitrosyncretic.com/rah/dedications.html

for those interested in Heinlein and trivia. It was a fascinating project; we took the dedications from every Heinlein book and worked out who they were. Some were easy; famous names, other SF authors, Ginny herself; others a list of first names who turned out to be family members or friends and very hard to pin down. Ginny very kindly filled in the blanks when I gave up and asked her for help and it turned up some lovely little snippets of stories I hadn't heard before and some very kind emails from various people I tracked down and bothered.

If Truth Be Told Giles/Spike/Wes 2/2

I just ate a banana split icecream bar in the bath. Fraught with the danger of a cold bit dropping onto lobster broiled flesh but very nice. Here's the end of the fic. Don't ask for more as I'll only wobble my lip and burst into tears. I've included the last paragraph of part one to ease you in, as Spike says to Wesley at some point, I'm sure...remember; silly fic. Not in character, not meant to be taken too seriously and I didn't proof read it with an eagle eye so advance apologies for mistakes.
I should probably shut up now, hmm? ;-)


( If Truth Be Told )